20 
Rustic Adornments. 
constructed on the cloth itself. The central decoration should be in each case 
a handsome feathery palm, or a well-grown specimen of Thyrsacant/nis rutilans 
Azalea indica, fern, Spircea japonica , Begonia, or any other flowering plant, 
which may give the necessary light and graceful outline, with sufficient height 
to form a suitable centre, without obstructing the view of the guests—a great 
mistake in arrangement, which must be carefully avoided. The fourth plan 
consists of the use of coloured leaves, 
berries, grasses, etc., and is more 
adapted for autumn and winter use. 
To make the above different 
schemes of decoration for the dinner- 
/ ' table more easily understood, it may 
be well to give the details of each 
plan separately. Taking the “draped” 
table first, we must have, besides 
\ the white cloth, an oblong piece of 
l “ Liberty ” silk (or soft sateen), about 
one-and-a-half yards in breadth, and 
two-and-a-half in length, or larger in 
proportion to the length of the oblong 
table to be draped. Having laid this 
flat in the centre of the table, a silver 
or china bowl, containing the central 
specimen plant (say a fern, Cyrtomium 
falcatum ), is placed upon it (or the 
pot, being large, may be draped with 
the same tint). The silk is now waved 
with the finger until it looks like a soft sea of drapery, little pushes with the 
forefinger giving it bends and crinkles innumerable. 
Again, it is extended somewhat at the four corners, and on each of these is 
placed a frosted specimen glass containing a fresh rose-bud, with a frond or 
two of maidenhair fern or a spray of Asparagus plumosus ; the edges of the 
silk are deftly turned in, and the drapery is caught up at the sides, so to 
speak, by fern fronds, or tinted foliage (such as blackberry, Virginia creeper, or 
carrot), in autumn • or even by sprays of the crimson tacsonia, or any richly 
coloured plant which harmonises with the roses employed. Specimen glasses 
containing similar rose-buds to those on the drapery may be used at intervals, 
CENTRE PLANT DRAPED IN SILK. 
V 
